Trade talks with Canada collapsed on Friday after insulting off-the-record comments President Donald Trump made to a Bloomberg reporter were leaked, reports the Toronto Star.
According to the report, Trump wanted some of his comments during a Bloomberg interview to be “off the record,” and admitted that he is not making any compromises at all in the talks with Canada — but won’t say so in public because “it’s going to be so insulting they’re not going to be able to make a deal.”
“Here’s the problem. If I say no — the answer’s no. If I say no, then you’re going to put that, and it’s going to be so insulting they’re not going to be able to make a deal…I can’t kill these people,” he said about the Canadian officials.
Trump added, that he was “scaring the Canadians into submission by repeatedly threatening to impose tariffs.”
“Off the record, Canada’s working their ass off. And every time we have a problem with a point, I just put up a picture of a Chevrolet Impala,” Trump said, according to the source.
The report notes that the Impala is produced at the General Motors plant in Oshawa, Ontario.
You can read the whole report here.